~ The Greek Professorship at the University of Missouri-St. Louis

The Dr. Nicholas Matsakis Memorial Lecture:Smyrna, September 1922: The American Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century’s First Genocidewith Lou Ureneck, Professor of Journalism, Boston University

In September 1922, the richest city of the Mediterranean was burned, and countless numbers of Christian refugees killed. The city was Smyrna, and the event was the final episode of the genocidal slaughter and expulsion of three million Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians from the Ottoman Empire.The destruction of Smyrna occurred as warships of the great powers—the United States, Great Britain, France, and Italy—stood by. The deaths of hundreds of thousands seemed inevitable until an American minister, Asa Kent Jennings, staged a bold rescue with the help of a courageous U.S. naval officer. In Smyrna, September 1922, Lou Ureneck tells the forgotten story of one of the great humanitarian acts of history.